When Do We Begin?
by Merccy
Summary: A series of JS drabbles.


A series of drabbles -- the challenges for them are italicized above the final results. Thanks to **Running Up Fawn**, **smutqueen**, **EOlivet** and **babythunder** for the challenges -- enjoy!

It's Jack/Sam, by the way.

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1. _When do we begin?_

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He feels like a kid again, sitting across from her at the table. Someone keeps droning on about something -- he stopped paying attention a while ago -- as she kicks him the note. He bends under the table to pick up his pen for the hundredth time that afternoon and grabs the paper.

_Wanna go out later tonight?_

He nods slyly and she smiles to herself.

Another note follows soon after. This time she slides it across the top when the speaker isn't looking.

_My place?_

Again, a nod. She's feeling like a giddy sixth-grader, passing these notes, and the mood is infectious. And now it's his turn for a note.

_When do we begin?_

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2._ Why should I know better by now, when I'm old enough not to?_

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"Why should I know better by now, when I'm old enough not to?"

What a question. And, as usual, it had left him tongue-tied and frozen, like a plastic mannequin. A slightly open mouth, eyes beginning to glaze over -- the telltale sign he was daydreaming. He decided the question was a rhetorical one and left it at that.

She continued despite his bewildered silence. "Come on. We can ditch this party, go out somewhere . . . fun."

He had to admit, the Christmas parties thrown by the Missing Persons unit of the FBI were not the highlight of the year. There were two twelve-packs of Coke and a couple of boxes of Dunkin' Donuts placed on the main table of the room for food -- not exactly a tasteful menu for a date. Agents milled around the food and mingled with one another in an attempt to mask the silence.

"We can go crash the Telemarketing Fraud department's party." He joked, glad to see his voice even worked around her when she was in that dress.

She paused to listen to the loud music coming from the department upstairs and then took his hand, leading him to the door. "I have a better idea."

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3. _He says I have an eating disorder and a fear of rectangles._

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"So how'd it go?"

She looks frazzled as she steps out of the therapist's office. "He says I have an eating disorder and a fear of rectangles."

"Is that so?" Annoyed and amused, simultaneously. He wants her to get better, he really does, but part of him can't help but cheer her on when she bites back.

"Wanna grab something to eat?" Picking up her things, she looks at him expectantly. It sounds simple enough, but he has the feeling that a muffin at the bakery is going to lead to a coffee at her place, and it'll be tough explaining to Marie why his hair is rumpled and his tie's askew -- especially when he was out the previous night, "discussing a case" with his young, blonde co-worker.

"Sorry, but . . . not tonight."

Heartbreak and shattered hope is what he sees reflected on her face as she turns and walks away, leaving him alone in the darkened office.

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4. _Don't go, you've got me smiling_

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"Why don't you smile anymore?"

Her eyes have lost their glint over the past couple of months, but there's still a mischievous undertone in her voice. It's all that's left of her now.

"What's there to smile about?" He had been kicked out of the house by Marie two nights ago, so he's been sleeping in the front of the hospital. The chairs they provide aren't very comfortable, but that's not what keeps him awake -- the soft crying of the other patients' families, the piercing wail of a flatline, the grate of metal wheels on the floor as another patient slips away -- they all prevent him from sleeping. That and the fear that he might be the next weeping resident of the lobby, or that the flatline will be hers and the stretcher will contain a body he is all too familiar with.

She doesn't respond to that. She hasn't been smiling much herself lately. "Don't you have work?"

"I'm using my vacation time." A trip to Hawaii that he'll never take anyway seems so trite and useless now.

"You're using your vacation time to watch me die."

"Don't say that." His own stubborn denial is all too apparent.

She looks more tired than she had looked after any of her chemotherapy treatments. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah." He kisses her once on the forehead and stands up. "I love you."

Despite the way he says it -- gruffly, almost bashfully -- she smiles. "Don't go, you've got me smiling now."

"I'll be back in an hour or two." He promises, and leaves. He just needs to take a walk, to clear his head.

After the walk, he goes to buy her flowers. When he returns the room is empty except for one nurse, stripping the sheets from her bed. Making room for the next patient.

A week later he places the flowers next to the marble headstone and tries to smile for her.


End file.
